Lancing College Chapel Updates: Summer 2025

Conservation

Last term’s Quad outlined the range of conservation works which arise from the Architect’s 2024 Quinquennial Inspection. This summer, Vitruvius, our brave and brilliant rope-access team, will replace finials on the south pinnacles, repair lead flashings and slates on the high roof and continue repointing exposed stonework with lime mortar. Some of this sounds mundane but it is all given added glamour by the traditional skills of masonry and working on the end of a rope or on a cherry-picker thirty metres above the ground. The ideal solution to long-term conservation is regular phases of rope-access work and minimal contracts involving scaffolding.

Since the Quinquennial, however, a detailed survey of the high apse windows has been carried out by drone. This technology delivers remarkable images, but close-up, tactile investigation is still essential to ensure safe use of the Chapel. That requires a scaffold for the interior and, in the interests of economy, carrying out the repairs at once. All this involves complex planning and the golden rule is to make as much use of the scaffold installation as possible. So, we are now contemplating one major contract at the east end, including the apse, the south tower and its copper spire.

The gifts of the Friends and of our tourist visitors, make the regular work possible but major contracts involve concentrated capital expenditure. Again, we are immensely fortunate to have received spectacularly generous legacies at just the right moment, which make it possible to get on with the job.

Legacies

When the Chapel was first proposed, someone said to the Founder, ‘but you trust entirely to luck to execute the work.’ Nathaniel Woodard replied, ‘I do but I call it by another name.’ And, from the start, ‘Providence’ has played a crucial role in the story of the Chapel. And there is nothing more providential than a substantial legacy. As Secretary of the Friends over many years, I have been overwhelmed by the commitment shown by OLs to the building which embodies the spirit of Lancing. It is the nature of legacies to appear out of the blue and from the most unexpected sources. And they have often come at just the right moment to complete a project or resolve a problem of maintenance. Indeed, it is true that without the astonishingly generous bequests which have been received by the Friends in their eighty years of fundraising, Lancing Chapel would not only still be unfinished, but it would also be totally unsafe to use or even visit. It costs at least £600 a day just to keep the Chapel open and usable. The equivalent will always be the case and there are often substantial additional costs. Your legacy to the Friends (whether you are a member or not) would help to preserve and enhance the Chapel for future generations and justify the Founder’s confident faith. To explore different ways of leaving a legacy gift to the Friends, please contact Catherine Reeve, clr@lancing.org.uk.

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